How long did the N'harea fire last?

According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 5 August 2026 to 27 September 2026 (54 days). The perimeter dates it from 10 August 2026 to 20 September 2026.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 31,618 hectares (316.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered N'harea (31,813 ha, 4.6 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 31.5 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 51 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 47, class Very high.

Where does this data come from?

From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Angola (geoBoundaries). It is not an official report.

AO · Angola · 2026-08-05 → 2026-09-27

N'harea fire, 5 August 2026 N'harea

Out · last detection 27 Sept 2026, 12:59 UTC

The fire started on 5 August 2026 in N'harea, Angola, and satellites saw it burning for 54 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 31,618 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

This page is probably a fire complex, not a single fire. GWIS merges into one perimeter the fires that touch over weeks, which in large burning seasons can join dozens of separate fires. The total area is reliable; the origin and dates refer to the whole complex.

Other fire pages in the same area and on the same dates:

It is the 2th largest in Bié since 2016 (of 64 with a page). Number 30 in Angola in 2026, of 486.

Compare with…

Suggestions: N'harea · 2025 N'harea · 2025 Andulo · 2026 N'harea · 2026

Burnt area: 31,618ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 54days; 5 Aug 2026 – 27 Sept 2026
Municipalities hit: 1; municipalities
Started on: 5 Aug; 2026
Heat detections: 1,789; in a single hotspot: 104 MW
Danger at start: 36; High · FWI index
Average daily power: 323MW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 5 Aug27 Sept

Play back 27 Sept 2026

How it evolved, day by day

5 Aug 13 Aug 21 Aug 28 Aug 29 Aug 6 Sept 14 Sept 26 Sept

Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.

The weather it burned in

32°high

51km/h · peak gust

13%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 5.2 mm on 28 Sept.

This area had burned before

69% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 386 ha in 2016, 401 ha in 2019, 1,002 ha in 2020, 768 ha in 2021, 4,994 ha in 2022, 2,152 ha in 2023, 9,661 ha in 2024, 18,713 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 21,722 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

It burned the equivalent of 20% of the area of London (316 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each town

N'harea where it started

31,813 ha reached on 5 Aug

4.6 %

Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance runs from the point marking the centre of each area to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.

People and buildings inside the perimeter

GHSL 2025

Built-up area15 ha

Residents≈ 1,000

Inside the perimeter there were about 15 hectares of built-up land and about 1,000 residents (GHSL 2025, satellite-based estimate).

This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned. The GHSL 2025 epoch is a projection made from 2020 and earlier data.

Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu

The weather day by day

ECMWF ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, the standard reference for past weather, and the Canadian Fire Weather Index (the same system Copernicus uses), computed by WorldFires from that data. Days after the fire run until the first rain.

Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)

Day	High	Min. humidity	Peak gust	Rain	Danger (FWI)
5 Aug	27.4 °C	21 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
6 Aug	27.7 °C	20 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
7 Aug	28.5 °C	15 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
8 Aug	28.4 °C	17 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
9 Aug	28.5 °C	17 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
10 Aug	28.6 °C	15 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
11 Aug	28.2 °C	15 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
12 Aug	28.2 °C	15 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 44
13 Aug	28.3 °C	24 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 43
14 Aug	28.3 °C	31 %	45 km/h	0.3 mm	Very high 41
15 Aug	28.4 °C	27 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
16 Aug	27.4 °C	22 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
17 Aug	27.6 °C	17 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
18 Aug	28.7 °C	14 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 43
19 Aug	28.9 °C	13 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 46
20 Aug	28.8 °C	13 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 47
21 Aug	28.1 °C	19 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
22 Aug	28.6 °C	23 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
23 Aug	29.9 °C	20 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 43
24 Aug	30.2 °C	19 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 46
25 Aug	29.6 °C	22 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
26 Aug	29.2 °C	25 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
27 Aug	31.5 °C	18 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 44
28 Aug	30.0 °C	22 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 44
29 Aug	29.2 °C	20 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
30 Aug	28.5 °C	31 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
31 Aug	27.4 °C	34 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
1 Sept	29.9 °C	26 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
2 Sept	30.4 °C	24 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
3 Sept	27.9 °C	33 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
4 Sept	27.6 °C	37 %	38 km/h	0.1 mm	High 32
5 Sept	28.0 °C	30 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
6 Sept	29.8 °C	27 %	17 km/h	0.1 mm	High 28
7 Sept	29.6 °C	32 %	31 km/h	0.3 mm	High 32
8 Sept	30.1 °C	30 %	51 km/h	2.3 mm	Moderate 21
9 Sept	28.5 °C	29 %	42 km/h	0.1 mm	High 31
10 Sept	28.6 °C	26 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
11 Sept	28.8 °C	30 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
12 Sept	28.9 °C	34 %	30 km/h	1.2 mm	Moderate 20
13 Sept	28.3 °C	38 %	29 km/h	1.8 mm	Moderate 12
14 Sept	30.5 °C	33 %	20 km/h	0.8 mm	Moderate 19
15 Sept	26.6 °C	42 %	26 km/h	4.0 mm	Very low 5
16 Sept	29.9 °C	32 %	35 km/h	0.2 mm	Moderate 21
17 Sept	29.3 °C	31 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
18 Sept	27.5 °C	43 %	31 km/h	0.3 mm	High 24
19 Sept	26.5 °C	44 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	High 24
20 Sept	26.8 °C	44 %	28 km/h	0.6 mm	Moderate 19
21 Sept	26.6 °C	45 %	17 km/h	3.1 mm	Very low 5
22 Sept	23.5 °C	54 %	20 km/h	3.2 mm	Very low 3
23 Sept	27.6 °C	44 %	34 km/h	1.6 mm	Low 6
24 Sept	26.9 °C	45 %	42 km/h	6.4 mm	Very low 3
25 Sept	30.8 °C	23 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 19
26 Sept	30.0 °C	30 %	22 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 20
27 Sept	28.8 °C	37 %	21 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 21
28 Sept after	26.2 °C	46 %	28 km/h	5.2 mm	Very low 2

Before and after, from space

Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.

↔

Before · 29 Jul 2026

After · 4 Oct 2026

Before After

If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.

The smoke

CAMS · Copernicus

On 3 September 2026 the air beside the fire reached 136 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 90: 6.0 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak136 µg/m³

Days over the guideline58 days

PM10141 µg/m³

Optical depth1.63

WHO 15

345678910111213141516171819202122232425262728293031123456789101112131415161718192021222324252627282930

Good Fair Moderate Poor Very poor Extremely poor

Particles from the Copernicus CAMS model at the centre of the perimeter; these are not measurements in each town. The pale bar is the worst hour, the solid one the daily average.

Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS)

Detections table · 1,789Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.

⬇ Download CSV Times in UTC. Each detection is a 375 m pixel: a large fire yields hundreds per pass.

Date and time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Angola ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the N'harea fire last?: According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 5 August 2026 to 27 September 2026 (54 days). The perimeter dates it from 10 August 2026 to 20 September 2026.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 31,618 hectares (316.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered N'harea (31,813 ha, 4.6 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 31.5 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 51 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 47, class Very high.
Where does this data come from?: From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Angola (geoBoundaries). It is not an official report.

Where to verify it

A satellite detection is not an official report. Final figures and the fire’s status are published by each country’s emergency service.

Satellite cross-check

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

History of this page Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.

No changes since 24 October 2026.

RSS Changes to this page

Does something look wrong on this page?

This page is built from satellite data and official records, and it sometimes gets things wrong: the wrong dates, the wrong town, two fires merged into one, or something that was not a wildfire at all. If you know this fire first-hand (you live nearby, saw it, fought it or reported on it), tell us what really happened and we will check it.

Report an error

What do you think is wrong?

Dates or duration Place or towns Burned area Name It was not a wildfire Same fire as another page Something else

What really happened?

Your connection to the fire (optional) Email (optional)

We will only use your email to reply about this report. Privacy.

How we know this

Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery; 3 polygons grouped in this page.
Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 10 August 2026 to 20 September 2026. 1,789 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
We have not matched this page with any official record.
Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2025, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.

How we build fire pages: methodology ›

Where this data comes from

The perimeter comes from the Copernicus Global Wildfire Information System (GWIS), which rebuilds it from MODIS and VIIRS heat detections and publishes it under CC BY 4.0. It is not measured on imagery as in Europe, so it is an estimate. Heat detections come from the VIIRS sensors aboard Suomi-NPP and NOAA-20, distributed by NASA FIRMS at 375 m resolution. Municipal boundaries come from geoBoundaries ADM2 (Public Domain). The area per municipality is computed by WorldFires by crossing the perimeter with those boundaries, so it may differ from each country’s official figure.

Where it burned